Twenty research projects by French teams have been selected to fight the Covid-19 epidemic, announced Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation Frédérique Vidal on Wednesday March 11. His ministry and that of solidarity and health have released an envelope of 8 million euros to finance specific work on the new coronavirus, to which are added 4.6 million euros from the European Union.
Involving all disciplines, including the humanities, social sciences and political sciences, the twenty projects were chosen by the scientific committee of the REACTing consortium, chaired by Pr Jean-François Delfraissy. Led by the National Institute of Health and Medical Research (Inserm), it coordinates all research teams in order to deal with health crises linked to emerging infectious diseases. The projects are organized around four themes: research for diagnostic, clinical and therapeutic purposes, epidemiology, basic research and the humanities and social sciences.
The patient volunteers will be randomly divided into four groups, explains Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah
One of the most significant projects is a clinical trial, already underway, designed to compare several strategies for the treatment of severe forms in hospital patients. Eight hundred patients will eventually be included in France and a total target of 3,200 patients should be reached, with the participation of medical teams from other European countries. The patient volunteers will be randomly divided into four groups, detailed Professor Yazdan Yazdanpanah, director of the REACTing consortium.
In the first, they will receive optimal resuscitation care without antiviral medication; those in group 2 will be given the antiviral remdesivir; in group 3, patients will take a lopinavir-ritonavir combination, already used against HIV; the same combination will be administered in the fourth group in combination with another drug, interferon beta, all in addition to resuscitation care.
“Adaptive” test
The main investigator of this study is Professor Florence Ader (Inserm, CNRS, Lyon-I University). Professor Yazdanpanah said that the test would be “Adaptive” : “If a treatment does not work, we will stop it, but if an effective treatment appears, we will add it. “ Professor Yazdanpanah indicated that chloroquine was not retained in the drugs tested in this trial, highlighting two difficulties: the problem of drug interactions with other treatments in patients in intensive care, and the existence of side effects of chloroquine, which make it cautious about its use.
Professor Yazdanpanah said that chloroquine was not retained in the drugs tested in this trial
Infectiologist Didier Raoult had reported in late February of a ” excellent news “ on the frontline of the fight against SARS-CoV-2, by affirming that this old and inexpensive antimalarial drug brought “Dramatic improvements” in infected patients. However, this announcement had been greeted with caution, given the small number of patients involved in the clinical trials conducted, the absence of details on the standard treatment used as a comparison point, and the absence of figures and details. on the initial clinical status of patients.
The other projects selected range from modeling the epidemic, a project led by Vittoria Colizza (Inserm, Panthéon-Sorbonne University), to analyzing the effect of the circulation of scientific data on the Internet, led by Guillaume Lachenal (Médialab de Science Po) and Daniel Benamouzig (CNRS, Sciences Po), including the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in the human host and the immune response, led by Pr Sylvie van Der Werf (Institut Pasteur , CNRS).
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